LAWRENCE, Kan. — There is talk in Lawrence about installing more city-owned cameras in the downtown area.
On Oct. 1, 2017, cell phone cameras recorded the chaos following a shooting that claimed three lives.
But it was security cameras near the scene that led the Douglas County District Attorney Charles Branson to charge three men in the case.
"If we hadn't had that camera footage, I'm not sure we would be able to bring the suspects to court," Branson told 41 Action News Friday.
The triple murder revived a proposal to add more surveillance cameras along the downtown corridor.
"Something that's not going to be zooming in or out on people who are trying to see what they're up to or what they're doing or who they're with," Branson said.
City Commissioner Matthew Herbert told 41 Action News it's a delicate conversation surrounding public safety in a public space.
"These cameras are clearly only going to be used in situations where we have to go back and look at them we don't have the resources to have somebody sitting there monitoring them 24 hours a day," Herbert said.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas who first opposed the idea back in 2012, released a statement on Friday:
"The ACLU of Kansas opposes the installation of surveillance cameras in Lawrence, or in any other municipality in Kansas. Incidents from across the country have demonstrated that surveillance systems, once installed, rarely remain confined to their original purpose, have little impact on public safety, and have a chilling effect on public life. Video surveillance systems are bad for communities because they soak up resources that could be better spent on community policing and do little more than shift crimes to areas without cameras. Even more concerning, they're highly susceptible to abuse and an inevitable expansion into other uses that pose a grave threat to civil liberties."
"I understand the privacy concerns but I also think it's a safety concern as well," Barbara Barnett, a Lawrence resident said.
City officials said they have 31 cameras at intersections around the city. The University of Kansas has also added hundreds of surveillance cameras on campus since 2005.
According to Herbert, Lawrence police department and city staffers are working to draft a policy that the commissioners can vote on.
"We make the budget, we set our priorities and if this is the will of the community we could make it happen," Herbert said.
He adds they hope to make a decision during their budget discussions that take place between April and June.
